THE MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL

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IN 1888, when Robert Jones was thirty-one, an exceptional opportunity presented itself. Since 1712 the rising City of Manchester had felt that a navigable waterway was essential to its trade. With righteous indignation the port of Liverpool was confident that things should remain as they were. The

long and acrimonious controversy between Liverpool and Manchester regarding a canal to reduce the enormous freight age charges had at last become acute. On November nth, 1887, the first sod was cut, and for seven years the great enterprise continued.

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It was necessary that a surgical and hospital staff should be appointed to look after the health of 20,000 men with their wives and families in the hutments along the canal. Only a surgeon with a wide experience of accidents amongst manual workers could organise such an undertaking. While upon holiday in Norway, in 1884, Robert Jones attended a case in the hotel where he was staying with such success that he aroused the interest of the English people staying there. Amongst these was Mrs. Garnett, head of “ The Navy Mission.”

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By her influence his name was put forward for the post of Surgeon-Superintendent of the Canal. With the exception of Hugh Owen Thomas, no one had the qualifications of Robert Jones for handling emergency work upon so consider able a scale. So early as the late ’eighties, Robert Jones was evidently regarded as an orthopaedic specialist, although he remained a general surgeon for nearly twenty years afterwards. 

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A local journalist remarks in 1889—“ Dr. Robert Jones, who has just been appointed to the honorary surgeonship of the Southern Hospital, is one of the best liked medical men in town. . . . When the Ship Canal works were commenced, Dr. Jones was offered the position of surgeon to the works,

the salary, I believe, being £3,000 a year. As the acceptance of the office, however, would have necessitated Dr. Jones giving up his private practice, he refused it, ultimately being appointed a kind of medical superintendent over the other practitioners engaged.” 

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The Provincial Medical Journal for December 1st, 1893, may be regarded as rather nearer the mark, when it said— “ In 1888 he was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the Manchester Ship Canal, upon which great work some 20,000 workmen were employed, and in five years over 3,000 accidents  demanded his supervision. Mr. Robert Jones designed and placed the hospitals. He selected the staff, which consisted of fourteen surgeons. One hospital was situated at Ellesmere Port, another at Warrington, and another at Patricroft, each being officered by a matron, house-surgeon, and two nurses. During five years Mr. Jones performed over two hundred major operations ; such is the cost of engineering enterprise.” 

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The construction of the Canal occupied several years. Work was both arduous and dangerous. Accidents were frequent and critical. Along its thirty-five miles there was continuous warfare with chance, which resulted in casualties of every type and degree.

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Thomas Andrew Walker, in whose charge rested the building of the Canal, was a man of exceptional personality. He was determined that the workers engaged should be properly cared for medically and morally, and their children educated in temporary schools. The whole organisation was, in fact, a minor preparation for much that Robert Jones carried out between 1914 and his death. It demanded

unflagging tact, efficiency, and enthusiasm, and these were qualities which were instinct in him.

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The Canal was divided into a number of independent sections, each with a hospital and an external medical service. The final arrangement included three central hospitals: one at Eastham, near Birkenhead, one at Latchfield, near Warrington, and one at Barton, near Manchester, the external

medical service remaining for each section. The doctors were local medical men who provided attendance for the workers and their families.

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Dr. Eugene Byrne, who worked with him in that period has written, “ Robert Jones had the appointment and supervision of the whole medical and nursing staff of the Canal. Each hospital had a resident house surgeon and qualified nurse as matron, a ward nurse under the matron, a cook and

handy-man. All accidents were brought to one of the three hospitals by the ‘ Overland Railway ’ (before I left the job there were 250 miles of railways on it ; one, a continuous line from end to end was called the ‘ Overland Railway ; ’ it was thirty-five miles long).

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“ If the accident was of serious nature, Sir Robert or as we knew him then, Mr. Jones—was summoned by the House Surgeon by wire, and turned up at the earliest possible moment, dealt with the emergency and attended to it subsequently, as in an ordinary Civil Hospital. The death of

Thomas Andrew Walker in November, 1889, made no change in the medical organisation of the Canal, and I believe Sir Robert continued to control it to the completion of the cutting.

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He sent me to Runcorn to await there the erection of the originally intended Section Hospital which never materialised, and at the end of about six weeks I was sent to Latchford, where he placed me in charge of the Hospital. It was a wooden cottage hospital, and almost completed, and had taken only fourteen days to erect. The external or visiting doctors sometimes made use of the Hospitals for severe cases amongst the Canal workers, such as pneumonia, rheumatic fever, and what we called at the time Russian influenza. Sir Robert did all sorts of emergency operations in Latchford

during my house surgeoncy.

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“ I remember one case in November, 1888, on a cold wet dark evening, when on my wire he came to a lodging house in Wash Lane, Latchford, to a man in articulo mortis from epileptic fits caused by an old-standing depressed fracture of the skull over the Rolandic area. Sir Robert at once trephined.

No anaesthetic was required. I merely held the lamp and when the operation was finished wrapped up the patient, put him on a wheeled ambulance stretcher and with the assistance of some of his pals trundled him off to Hospital.”

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Accidents appear to have been too frequently, in many cases, caused by drunkenness and sheer lack of care. Here is one which, in its suddenness and violence, can only be compared to the bombing of trench warfare thirty years later. “ On the morning of July 18th, night gangs were in the cutting, drilling and chipping the rock by the aid of the Lucifer light, and one gang of twenty men was directly under the track siding. By accident, or through carelessness, a lad at the points (seventeen years of age) turned a train of twenty-three trucks, drawn by two engines, into the empty truck siding

instead of on to the line to the tip of Ellesmere Port. These came crashing along, and charging the dead end of the siding fell over into the hollow below, right on top of the gang at work immediately beneath. Engines, trucks, stones and men were all in one almost inextricable mass, lit up by the Lucifer light. The scene was appalling, and the shrieks of the injured and dying were awful. Men rushed to the rescue, and by the aid of steam cranes released those still alive, who were promptly conveyed to various hospitals or attended to on the spot by medical men. Many who were not killed were maimed for life.”

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The casualties through machinery were as shocking as they were sudden. Arms and legs were torn off and emergency service was always an essential.

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It will be remembered that in Nelson Street Hugh Owen Thomas had a quick and effective way with patients, and a good deal of reluctance in the use of anaesthesia. To Thomas it was better for the patient (and a great saving of precious time) to conclude a minor operation or manipulation without undue anticipation, anaesthesia, or in fact, delay. Old patients grew wary when Thomas blandly asked them to climb small ladders, or to let him examine badly set elbows. In his main consultation room there were several swing doors, and there was some element of truth in the legend that they were lines of retreat for a surgeon pursued by an agonised patient whose gratitude would develop later. Many a poignant, if feeble, jest was uttered when knowledgeable patients on the front

doorstep were confronted by those ominous initials “ H.O.T.” !

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Dr. John Ridlon—whose arrival from Chicago is mentioned later—has written with feeling of such scenes. “ I went round to Dr. Thomas’ office. What a crowd. I decided to count them. We saw in the office up to dinner time, and the doors were closed at twelve o’clock, one hundred and forty-six

patients. Among these was the reduction of a shoulder, out fourteen days, that required the combined strength of the whole force and the machine. How the fellow yelled ! ! !

No ether ! Then there were three women who had had broken wrists grown together in crooked position. These were re-fractured and put up, also without ether ! and with no help except from me.

 

During the morning on Saturday he did an operation with no one to assist him and without ether. Such as we should make a great fuss about at home, give ether, and have two or three assistants.”

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Thomas was probably too indifferent to pain or over emphasised the importance of time and speed. But times have changed. In the very slight as very severe casualties of the Ship Canal, as in the War twenty-five years afterwards, Robert Jones occasionally shocked the younger generation of doctors

by a refusal to use an anaesthetic. Years afterwards, in 1930, his old colleague, D. McCrae Aitken, wrote to him—“ There is the great point that in bad motor smashes—and he (Lorenz Bohler) made a statement with which I agree—if you give the patient a general anaesthetic he will probably die, while

if you give him relief from pain with a local anaesthetic the pulse begins to recover in ten minutes, shock disappears, and the surgeon has time to set his fracture quietly and properly.”

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In the days of the Canal there were no local anaesthetics, but in his reply Robert Jones remarks—“ Does not the story you give me of death in fractures after an anaesthetic remind you of the time of the Manchester Ship Canal and before the days of cocaine, when we discarded operating with an

anaesthetic and remained with the patient all night ? They never lost consciousness and rallied and got well, and the mortality was reduced from about eighty per cent, to twenty per cent.”

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Upon one occasion at an emergency operation Robert Jones decided against an anaesthetic. Overtaken by panic his assisting surgeon expostulated. “ Very well,” said Jones, “ I shall operate with the matron’s assistance,” which he proceeded to do with excellent results.

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John Ridlon was deeply impressed with the strength and rapidity of his manipulation. “ At that time,” he recalls, “ the Manchester Ship Canal was being built, and he was the surgeon of the construction company which had a hospital in Manchester. In that hospital he had a small child with rachitic bow legs to break and straighten. He said ‘ We’ll break them. 

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You take that leg and I’ll take this one.’ I took the left leg in my hands and bent it gradually and slowly and I thought it would never break. The other leg he broke with a quick snap. That,” said Ridlon, “ was the first I ever did with my hands alone, and,” he adds, “ it was at that visit you took me one

night to the theatre to see an American play. You wore a velveteen jacket, and we had seats in a box. The play was a Wild West show with the only Indian brass band in the world. Fortunately we were at the back of the box, for I was that homesick that I cried many tears behind the curtains when the

band played ‘ Marching through Georgia.’ ”

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Mr. J. T. Walker, a surgeon who was associated with him in the years 1892-4, thus describes the Hospital’s accommodation and methods—“ In the summer of 1891 I acted as locum for the resident at the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool, and thus became acquainted with Mr. Jones, who was the junior honorary surgeon at that time. In October of that year, he appointed me House Surgeon to the Ship Canal Hospital at Barton, near Manchester. This hospital was closed shortly afterwards and I went to another hospital at Latchford, near Warrington. There was a third at Ellesmere Port, but I

never saw it, and I think it was closed about the same time. I remained at the Latchford Hospital till the beginning of 1894, when it was closed on the completion of the Canal. Thus I can only write of the last two years of the job.

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“ Mr. Jones had control of all the Hospitals, and appointed their residents and matrons . . . The Hospitals were entirely of wood, and consisted, apart from the part for the staff, of one large ward of about twenty-six beds, and two small wards with four to two beds. There were two nurses in addition

to the matron. Mr. Jones visited regularly, and when any case needing his attention was admitted, he was telegraphed for, or if not urgent, written to, there being no telephone.

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“ The hospitals were close to the Canal, and as a railway line ran along the bank from end to end, all accident cases from any distance were brought on an engine or in a truck.

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“ Mr. Jones did all the major operations, which were mostly amputations. There were a good many of these, but the most frequent accidents were fractures—all sorts. The great bulk of admissions were accidents, but a few other surgical cases were sent in, and some acute medical, such as pneumonia

and rheumatic fever. These latter were accommodated in the small ward, where also any case needing isolation was put. 

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We had occasionally a case of erysipelas happening, but the disease never spread. Those were the days of antisepsis, before asepsis became adopted, and although cleanliness was observed, there was not the preparation or the meticulous safeguards now taken. Carbolic lotion or perchloride of

mercury and plenty of iodoform or boracic acid were used at operations and for dressings.

 

Frequently there was slight suppuration after amputations, but it was never serious, and the results were very good. Except for erysipelas I never saw any complication, and although many of the cases were bad crushes of fingers, hands, etc., there was no tetanus.

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“ The Hospitals were well stocked with medicines, splints, etc. The latter were mostly those designed by Mr. Jones or his uncle Mr. Hugh Owen Thomas. Thomas’s hip splints, knee-splints, etc., were in constant use. Fractures of the femur were put in the knee-splint, and when the patient could get about he had a caliper.

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“ The treatment for Pott’s fracture was followed by the boot being blocked. When any patient needed an artificial limb or splint or boot, etc., a Liverpool man named Critchley made and supplied them. I believe he had been trained in that class of work by Hugh Owen Thomas.

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“ I believe the salary was £1,000 a year, at first at any rate, and may have been all through. There was some dissatisfaction in Manchester that a Liverpool surgeon was chosen for Manchester’s own Canal. I heard that the Contractor was consulting one of Mr. Jones’s colleagues on the Southern

Hospital and asked if he could recommend an energetic young man for the post, and he gave Mr. Jones’s name.”

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11

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Apart from the supervision of the hospitals with all their varied experience, Robert Jones came into contact with a class of men for whom he formed a deep admiration and affection. He had known dock hands, seamen, boiler makers and ships’ carpenters, but not navvies.

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The navvy of forty years ago had characteristics as marked as the Cockney of Albert Chevalier. With all his belongings tucked in a bundle, a coloured kerchief round his powerful neck, good-hearted and hard-working, he was a man after Robert Jones’ heart. He discovered in him great personal 

fortitude under pain, a sardonic humour and an innate cleanliness of mind. One of the navvy songs which he preserved was—

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“ I’m a navvy, I work on the Ship Canal,

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I’m a tipper, and live in a hut with Sal,

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If ever you come to Eastham call at Sea Rough Wood

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There’s a hearty cheer without the beer

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And ‘ Tommy ’ that’s always good.

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Our work is hard and dangers always near,

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And lucky are we if safely thro’ life we steer,

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But still the life of a navvy with its many changes of scene

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With a dear old wife is just the life

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That suits old Nobby Green.”

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The filling in of the last section of the Canal commenced on November 20th, 1893. It was officially opened by Queen Victoria on January 1st, 1894, when a local poet laureate, triumphantly carried away by emotion, declaimed—

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“ The silver streak we sail to-day was made by British hands, No foreign workmen did the work, no mercenary bands.”

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The long task was over. Twenty thousand navvies, their wives and children said goodbye to Eastham, Ince, Runcorn, Warrington, Lymm, Thelwall and Manchester. They packed up and departed and soon their hutments, their field hospitals, their canteens and their schools were a memory for ancient men.

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For Robert Jones it was like a rehearsal in miniature for what was then not even a cloud the size of a man’s hand. 

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In those years he learnt the elements of organisation, of supervision, and of desperate casualties under primitive conditions. But perhaps it was of even greater service that he had been welcomed into the comradeship of the hard-headed, hard-living English labouring class.

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The above Chapter was taken from: -

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THE LIFE OF SIR ROBERT JONES
BY
FREDERICK WATSON

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